Getting our hands dirty (researching two new soil stories)

Research // Symbiosis Storytelling // Upcoming

Scale Free Network will again collaborate with writer Ailsa Wild and visual ecologist Aviva Reed to creatively develop two new stories in the groundbreaking Small Friends book series. Set on the micro-scale, ‘The Forest in the Tree’ will be inspired by communities connected through the underground fungal ‘internet’, and ‘Xenos’ Feast’ will tell a darker tale of life, death and parasitism within the soil.

In order to learn about the complex microscopic world within soil – the skin of the earth – we needed to talk to the experts. Our journey took us from our Melbourne home to the University of Queensland (Brisbane) and the University of Arizona (Tucson) to meet with biologists, microbiologists, nematologists and microscopists to talk about all things soil.